History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 2 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

Provisions and extra allowances.

Besides an ample supply of provisions to each ship, the commander had almost every luxury he could desire provided at the expense of the Company.[388] He was also allowed to import two pipes of Madeira wine,[389] which were not reckoned as part of his allowance. The first mate, besides his proportions of freight and provisions, had as “indulgences” on each voyage twenty-four dozen of wine or beer, two firkins of butter, one hundredweight of cheese, one hundredweight of grocery, and four quarter cases of pickles. The second the same as the chief, except that his allowance of wine or beer was limited to twenty dozen; and the other officers in somewhat similar proportions. So that their appointments, if not so lucrative as that of the commanders, must have been very desirable and comfortable.

If such were the advantages of the officers in the maritime service of the Company, what must have been the gains of its civil servants in India, who appear not to have been limited or controlled to the same extent in their perquisites or trading privileges. No wonder that the Company, even with its vast monopoly, found itself frequently in difficulties, and obliged to seek, especially in the earlier portion of its career, the assistance of government. Indeed instances sometimes occurred when the commanders and officers, not having filled their allotted space with produce of their own, received for it from China not less than 50l. per ton as freight to London; and in one instance within our own knowledge, the commander of one of the ships employed on the “double voyage”—that is, from London to India, thence to China,[390] and thence back to London, where he had a large interest in the freight on cotton or other produce conveyed from India to China—realised no less than 30,000l.

Illicit trade denounced by the Court,

But notwithstanding these numerous privileges, the Court of Directors having frequently received information of an illicit trade carried on by too many of the officers and commanders of their ships, at last resolved, with the view of putting an end to practices “so detrimental to the revenue, the Company, and the fair trader,” to invariably dismiss from their service any one found guilty of such practices. Indeed, in the hope of detecting the delinquents, they went so far as to publish advertisements, wherein they state that “having received information that great quantities of woollens, camblets, and warlike stores have been illicitly imported; also great quantities of tea, muslins, China-ware, diamonds, and other merchandise have been imported in their ships and smuggled on shore,” they “offer a reward to any person who shall make a discovery of such offence of one-half of what the Company shall recover and receive over and above all other rewards the parties are entitled to by law.”[391]

and measures adopted to discover the delinquents.

But these illicit practices appear at one time to have been carried on not merely in London and at the ports to which the ships of the Company traded in India and China, but at places in England, Scotland, and Ireland their ships had no business to be; for the Court of Directors passed a standing order wherein it was declared that within six weeks of the clearance of the cargoes of the homeward-bound ships, the commander and officers were required to attend a joint committee of private trade and shipping, to whom it was referred to make strict inquiry into the reasons of any deviations made on the passage to London, or during any portion of the voyage, and the committee were enjoined with all convenient speed to report their opinion to the Court. The Directors further “resolved unanimously” that, as these illicit practices were shown to have occurred, and were “frequently carried on” at foreign ports, as well as at out-ports in England, Ireland, and Scotland, to which the ships proceeded “contrary to the orders and instructions given to the commanders,” or by “means of vessels which meet the Company’s ships at sea, and there deliver goods to, and receive goods from them,” stringent measures should be adopted to detect the delinquents.[392] It was consequently further ordered that the clerk to the Committee of Private Trade should within four weeks of the arrival of each ship collect from her journals, and from letters and other means of information brought before him, an account of all the ship’s proceedings “to or towards any port or place, both outward and homeward, without or contrary to the Company’s orders or instructions, and of all the ship’s deviations from, or loitering in, the course of her voyage in the English Channel or elsewhere,” and report the same in writing to the chairman or deputy chairman, and also to the Committees of Private Trade and Shipping. If satisfactory accounts were not given for these deviations, the solicitor to the Court was instructed to file a bill in the Court of Exchequer against the commander of the ship or other persons implicated.

Connivance of the officers of Customs.

But though deviations for any such purposes must have been difficult to trace, as so many excuses could be brought forward in the shape of contrary winds, stress of weather, sickness, loss of spars and sails, or the necessity of a fresh supply of water and provisions for the crew and passengers, the Court of Directors appear to have done everything in their power to discover the delinquents by still further resolving, that on the arrival of the Company’s ships in the River Thames the clerk of the Committee of Private Trade was forthwith to give notice thereof to the Master Attendant or his assistant, or if they were otherwise previously employed, to the Surveyor of Shipping or his assistant, to proceed at once on board of the ship, and before any goods were delivered to carefully examine the state and condition of her hold, and of every part of the lower decks, and report to the Committee of Private Trade what vacant space, if any, remained therein which was fit and proper for the stowage of goods, and also whether any packages appeared to have been removed or displaced during the homeward-bound passage. When any vacant space was discovered which could not be satisfactorily accounted for, the commander was fined in the sum of 100l. for every sixty cubical feet of such vacant space. But these apparently stringent regulations were somehow or other too frequently of no avail, especially in cases where the illicit practices were effected by the connivance of the officers of Customs, or in various other ways, more easily understood than explained, so that convictions were too often rendered impossible or impracticable. And whenever these were made and actions were raised, the “compositions of such suits, very much to the prejudice of the Company,” were so frequent that the Court had to request the Commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs “to be pleased to give an account to its solicitor of all suits which were pending,” and from time to time “of all suits that shall hereafter be brought against any of the commanders and officers of the Company’s ships for practices of smuggling.”[393]

Considering the very high remuneration of the Company’s commanders and officers, and the very liberal manner in which they were treated, we should have thought that no one among them would have been guilty of illegal practices, especially when they were found to be highly prejudicial to the interests of employers at whose hands they were so handsomely treated. But such, we fear, must have been the case, towards the close of the last century, and that to a large extent, or the Court would not have deemed it necessary to issue such stringent regulations for their suppression. Happily the class of men, and the high character of the families to which, as a rule, they belonged, who entered the service in later years, combined with the rigorous enforcement of the Company’s regulations, brought about a different state of things, and put an end to a system which ought never to have prevailed in the best paid maritime service in the world: and did we not feel bound to record such instances of wrong and ingratitude, as these official documents too clearly reveal, we would gladly omit altogether the notice of acts which reflect great discredit on a class of men otherwise deserving our respect and our gratitude for the invaluable services they, on more than one occasion, rendered to their country.